


Flying Colors

by GatewayGirl



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Aphrodisiacs, Bondage, Innuendo, M/M, Steampunk, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-15
Updated: 2010-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatewayGirl/pseuds/GatewayGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Contrivance Match -- each team devises one Contrivance to help them on the pitch. The only rule -- no foreseeable permanent damage. When Slytherin captain Draco Malfoy gets the bright idea of spying on Potter using Potter's boy, Creevy Minor, there are no rules off the pitch, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Colors

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the '10 hds_beltane exchange on LJ and DW, for Megyal, who requested (among other things) an H/D Steampunk AU. I had fun mixing steampunk elements into Hogwarts magic!
> 
> Since this is an AU anyway, I've added a year to the Hogwarts curriculum -- to make some of the age overlaps work out better for the plot, and to provide time for some courses in mechanics. It should all be apparent from the story.  
> Thanks to sociofemme for beta work.

Harry was in the middle of banging out an explanation of why using transfigured materials in constructs was risky -- while privately thinking how often the risk was worth it, at least in his life, though he supposed that wasn't typical -- when the typograph stopped short. The E key creaked slowly back into place.

"Damn it!"

"Problem?" Ron asked, looking up a little too readily from his Charms text. Harry suspected he was desperate for a distraction.

"Just this balky machine," Harry fumed, rummaging through his school bag in search of erumpet powder. "There's got to be some way to run it off of dragon's blood."

Ron snorted. "Not that anyone would sell you that."

After a quick visual confirmation that they were alone, Harry smirked. "I've got some though."

"WHAT?" Ron's eyes had opened satisfyingly wide. "Harry! You can't have that here! And you can't use it in the typograph! It _blows up _if there's any friction!"

"I know," Harry soothed.

"So you can't have it in the room!" Ron repeated frantically.

"Calm down. I don't. It's in the Shrieking Shack. But Ron, think! The Contrivance match -- we can paint a diluted solution on a modified bludger -- one that only goes after players in green."

The look of horror on Ron's face changed slowly to a satisfied grin. "Oh," he said. "_Brilliant._" He cocked his head and looked at Harry. "We'll have to make sure it doesn't violate the permanent harm rule."

"Of course. I've been researching the appropriate dilution...." Harry scowled at the typograph again. "And I still think there ought to be some way...."

"No," Ron said firmly. "Drop that thought _now_. Every few decades, there's some wizard or witch who says that, and there's never enough left of them to bury. You do _not _use dragon's blood in anything with moving parts."

Harry sighed. "All right." He opened the rearmost canister on the typograph, sprinkled in a little erumpet skin powder (dilution x100), and locked the lid back down. He checked the front canister out of habit, but as he expected, it still had plenty of coal, and he could see the screen had enough quicksilver. With a quick pump, he primed the steam chamber and then went back to forcefully hitting keys. The E stuck.

"Damn it all!" He stomped down three flights of stairs to where a group of fifth year boys were speculating about something related to Quidditch. His boy belatedly noticed his presence and scrambled to his feet. "Creevey!"

"Yes, sir?" Dennis answered, rocking forward onto his toes.

"Fetch me a vial of Slippod juice, will you?" The Contrivance match occurred to him. He might as well start the color charm. "Oh, and Streeler shell powder."

"Yessir!" Dennis said eagerly, and dashed off. Shaking his head, Harry started back up the stairs. He was sure he hadn't been half that bouncy about running errands for Oliver.

 

The best thing about being one of the top two Hogwarts Quidditch teams wasn't the chance at the Quidditch Cup, but the match after that -- the Contrivance match. In the Contrivance match, each team was allowed one Contrivance of their own construction. It could break any Quidditch rule, and it was well known that even obvious violations of the law were customarily overlooked. The only enforced restriction was that it could not be reasonably expected by the creators to cause death or permanent harm.

Harry's idea won out, that year. It wasn't just that he was famous, or that even he was team captain and one of two eighth years on the team. It was that the designs were chosen -- in great secrecy -- by the team, and after the behavior of the Slytherins in the final match of the Quidditch Cup, everyone jumped at the opportunity to rough them up a bit. The Contrivance had to be at least half mechanical, and standard Bludgers were almost entirely magical, but a 90% mechanical solution to the Bludger had been devised nearly a century ago, and was well-documented. The Gryffindor team took out the complicated -- and highly explosive -- buoyancy unity in favor of a neutral flotation spell, added mechanical color-detection with an alchemical check, and presented their plan to Professor McGonagall. After imposing only the most minimal safety adjustments, she signed off on it, and production -- with the inevitable modifications -- began.

**********

Draco sat carefully, despite the anti-wrinkle charms on his frock coat and trousers, and kept his back straight as he gracefully accepted a cup of tea from his head of house. It wasn't a need to impress -- although he knew Professor Snape placed as much value on posture as his mother -- but rather ingrained manners evoked by tea with a professor. Draco _could _slouch, when he wished to express insolence, but it took thought.

One of Snape's long fingers tapped the document under his left hand.

"I have read your proposal, Mr. Malfoy," he said coolly.

There was silence. Draco bit back the urge to say "and?" He was familiar with these games. He took a sip of tea. While Snape did likewise, Draco straightened his shirt cuff, aligning it perfectly to his coat cuff.

"In concept," Snape continued, as if there had been no pause at all, "it is everything we want in a Contrivance -- spectacular, difficult, and clever. It would enhance your reputation and be a fine cap to your eighth year."

"But?" Draco asked wryly. _Damn. I let him pull me in._

"But I wonder if you are letting your obsession with Harry Potter overrule your sense of strategy. A Contrivance that targets only the opposing Seeker is of limited use." His mouth tightened. "You may want to defeat Potter, but I want to defeat Gryffindor."

"Potter _is _Gryffindor," Draco retorted, the usual fiery spike that Potter brought to his thoughts overcoming any conversational posturing. "They will all be humiliated if he is carried off like a rabbit."

"And the game, Draco?"

"They have no chance of winning without him."

Snape sneered.

"So Gryffindor win on the talent of their Seeker, do they?"

Draco glowered, but refused to let his anger muddle his words. "_When _they win," he shot back. "I don't deny that in a flat-out race, he would beat me; he's still the size of a fifth year. I assure you, if I had anyone of my talent _and _his size, I would move them into my position." He glared at his head of house. "However, in talent, I am his equal, and a boy of less size and less talent will not improve our chances."

Snape nodded a polite acknowledge. "Just remember, Draco -- your ego is not well served by undermining the success of your house."

Draco set his lips to hold back a scowl. The minor victory of having brought Snape down to using his first name barely penetrated his humiliation. "I understand. Have you any concrete objections, sir?"

"For completeness, I should point out that targeting by color is a risk."

Draco nodded. "Because of the possibility of a switch, I know. However, Zabini saw Potter's boy taking Streeler shell from the school stores on Monday, and at practice last night, the Weasley girl stole Bulstrode's gauntlet, and then tossed it back. I think they are also planning to target chromatically."

Nodding, Snape poured more tea. "Very well, then. I approve it."

**********

At lunch time on May Day -- not the bank holiday, but the actually first of May -- Lavender was passing out little bags made of what appeared to be cheesecloth charmed green. They were filled with flower petals.

"What's this?" Harry asked. Ron hadn't got one, but she had given them to him and Neville.

"It's for finding love on the first of May," she replied cheerfully. "I'm giving them to all the single boys."

"Um...." Harry looked doubtfully at the little bundle. He'd never seen anything like it at Hogwarts. "Is this real? I mean, not some Muggle superstition?"

Lavender rolled her eyes. "Well, they have to start somewhere, don't they? Muggles don't just think these things up! But if you _must _know, it's from Camellia Cornwithel's _Subtle Signs for Simple Solutions_, which was highly reviewed in _Divination Tomorrow_."

"Um..."

"Just carry it with you, and stay alert for opportunities," Lavender said, moving on to Seamus and Dean.

"Because I'm so likely to find my true love in History of Magic," Harry muttered to Ron.

"What, does Binns leave you cold?"

"I think she meant when you go out to the Maypole," Neville said meekly.

"Maypole?"

"Aren't those supposed to be in the morning?" Ron asked.

Neville shrugged. "Some of the girls got it together. I hear they argued about whether it should be at the wrong time, or on the wrong day."

"At least they knew no one would show up before breakfast on a Friday."

 

The afternoon was beautiful -- fresh and sunny and just warm enough, and the Gryffindor Common Room was almost empty when Harry went up to his dormitory to fetch his invisibility cloak. Rolled up tightly, it made only a small bulge in his frock coat, and it left him a discreet means of retreating if the Maypole excursion was tedious, or worse. He walked down the hill, vaguely near other stragglers, but not _with _anyone, while the sounds of music and cheerful chatter grew closer. Just past the turn at the low pines he finally saw the colors of the maypole and the crowd. It was a little dizzying after a long day indoors. The afternoon sun was just breaking through the clouds and shone off ribbons of many colors, none of them in precisely house hues. The dancers -- and there was an outer arc curving around the circle at the maypole -- had all taken off their black student coats and were displaying the riotous clothes that Hermione had once classified as "Victorian  
Fanciful".

"Why Victorian?" he had asked her, and she had rolled her eyes, but answered readily. "The Wizarding world is terribly slow to adopt fashion changes, and that's the last time it did. According to _Hogwarts: A History_, students here wore medieval scholars' robes right up until the mid-eighteenth century."

What he saw now was a scattered rainbow of long dresses, some spreading out in ruffled circles from spins, and equally colorful waistcoats over a base of the boys' dark trousers and mostly white shirts. Among the blues and reds that might have been common in a Muggle gathering, were just as many splashes of purple and lime, with patterns moving across some of the fabrics. In the riot of color, it was difficult to spot even Ron's hair. Ginny was wearing hers down, though, and after catching sight of that ginger fall, Harry was able to find Ron and Hermione near her. Instead of hurrying to join them, he slowed. One of the topiary gardens was just uphill from the dancing green, so there were places to duck out of sight -- he just hoped he didn't run into anyone doing the same thing for other reasons.

Ron's hair may have been hard to spot, but somehow Harry noticed Malfoy's immediately. Maybe it was the walk, he thought. Malfoy usually moved with a cocky saunter, but right now, he was moving in an even glide, like Snape trying to sneak up on someone, in the shadow of the outer hedge. Making a quick decision, Harry swerved off the path and behind a bush, and donned his invisibility cloak.

 

To his relief, Malfoy did not seem bent on using his position as a prefect to seek out couples in the bushes. He continued along the edge of the garden, ignoring rustles and giggles that he had to have heard, and off into the unkempt lands near the Forbidden Forest. After a few minutes of walking, Harry realized they were headed towards where Hagrid had pulled up the Devil's Snare last year. Was Malfoy planting more? That must be it, Harry decided. It would be just like him to have a hobby of strangling bunnies -- indirectly, of course, to avoid any mess.

Weeds were competing for the space where the Devil's snare had been. Malfoy strolled along the line, surveying the jumble. On the uneven ground, Harry had to stay well back, so Malfoy would not hear him twigs breaking and rocks shifting under his feet, or notice the bending of grasses.

Malfoy didn't go far. He stopped, and bent down to study a particular plant. Then he did something very odd. He crossed one ankle over the opposite shin, and squatting in that manner, plucked a leaf, and tucked it in his shoe. He then switched feet, and plucked another leaf, and tucked it in the other shoe. Harry started mentally noting landmarks he could use to locate the plant once Malfoy had left, only absently noticing when Malfoy picked a third. Malfoy left at a much faster clip than he had approached, and Harry walked straight towards the plant, his attention fixed on a particular pine sapling behind it.

 

When he got there, there were three different plants in front of the sapling, but he could easily find the one with sticky sap where the leaves had been. It was a hairy, ugly plant, and the leaves felt unpleasant when Harry picked one. It smelled almost like an unlit cigar. Harry took a closer sniff and felt momentarily dizzy. Quickly, he plucked a bunch of pine needles from the sapling, transfigured them into a square of cloth, and tied his leaf up inside it. He would find out what it was later. Shoving the bundle in his pocket next to Lavender's charm, he hurried to catch up with Malfoy.

His quarry was far ahead, but also seemed to be heading back to the maypole. He disappeared into the crowd before Harry reached it, so Harry ducked behind a hedge and took off the cloak. When it was safely back in his coat pocket, and his coat resting over his arm, he came back out to check out the dancing.

He had been thinking he might dance, earlier, but during the time he was gone, many of the older students had paired off for walks, or settled in groups to chat, and the dancers were mostly younger, now. Harry leaned against a rock and watched, wondering if it was worth joining in anyway. Maybe if he went and talked to Ron and Hermione, they would follow him back in at the next tune? While he was considering that, someone began to approach from his right. Harry glanced over. Malfoy, he realized, and pretended not to notice, while he inwardly prepared for a fight. Indeed, Malfoy stopped a step in front of him.

"Don't want to dance, Potter?" he said mockingly.

Harry _did _want to dance, but he suddenly realized that he couldn't imagine doing it. "Eh. I'll leave it to the kids."

Draco gave him a sly look. "Do you prefer more _adult _dances?" he asked, his eyebrows rising.

Harry hated when he couldn't even figure out how Malfoy was insulting him. "Piss off, Malfoy," he said, and turning on his heel, began to stride away.

"I wasn't offering!" Malfoy shouted after him, and took off in the other direction.

When Harry paused to collect himself, Ron hurried up to him.

"What was that about?" he asked, jerking his head towards where Harry had met Malfoy.

"I have no idea. Something about my taste in dancing." Harry rolled his eyes. "Not that I know anything about dancing, but I'm sure he knows that."

"Ah." They watched together for a while, and then Hermione came to pull Ron back into the circle. Feeling strangely lonely, Harry returned to Gryffindor tower.

As he climbed the stairs, Harry wondered if he had expected the charm to work. He didn't want a lover, did he? It would be awkward, especially if it wasn't a girl who approached him, and he didn't feel any need to be in a relationship -- he had plenty of friends, after all. Why should watching people dance in the sunshine make him melancholy?

He went to bed early, and had a ludicrous dream in which he and Malfoy were taking turns spiraling ribbons around each other.

 

When Harry came back from breakfast the next morning, Seamus and Dean and Neville were just leaving the dormitory, and Ron was just waking up. Harry waited for him to stretch and rub the sleep out of his eyes before showing him the snipping of plant he still had in his coat pocket.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked.

Ron's jaw dropped. "Um," he stammered. His face began to turn red. "I, well, I'd considered that you might-- But since you chose a first year...." He seemed unable to finish.

"What?" Harry said, confused.

"Creevey," Ron elaborated, clarifying nothing. "I mean, if you wanted a _boy_, you know, you should have chosen a third-year, and then McGonagall mightn't have minded while you were still here to enjoy it. Choosing a first year is pretty much declaring that you don't, even if you got him a year younger than you should have, because I think she'd go spare if he was under fourteen."

Harry didn't want an explanation of what he thought Ron was babbling about. From what he could tell, hardly anyone ever did that, anyway. Certainly no one he knew did.

"Look, will you just tell me what it is?"

Ron's mouth fell open again, and then closed only as far as a grin. "You mean you don't know."

"Right," Harry said patiently. "I _don't know_. That's why I'm _asking_."

"Oh. Well, who gave it to you then?"

"Ron...." Harry warned.

"Look, you know Lavender's thing? That's only for if you're looking for a girl. If you're looking for a boy, you use that."

Ron pointed. Harry almost dropped the leaf. A voice in the back of his head pointed out that he had better not want a lover, because he had been carrying both tokens, and it hadn't helped.

"At least that makes more sense," Ron said cheerfully. "I knew you couldn't be bent."

Harry stared. He didn't think he had been especially subtle about tailing around after Cedric at the end of his fifth year, although the older boy had at least been decent enough not to embarrass him by noting it and turning him down. He certainly hadn't been trying to hide his admiring looks after Trent, last autumn.

"Because I dated a girl for two months?" he hazarded.

Ron shot him a look as if _he _was being stupid. "No -- _Dennis_," he said.

"Are you _mad_?" Harry said scornfully, finally managing to put the implication he could bugger Dennis into context. "Honestly, you never noticed me staring at Cedric because I didn't want some _kid_?"

"Oh!" Ron bit his lip. "Um, yes?"

"And saying Trent was the sexiest thing at school?"

"Well, just -- thought you'd picked up some talk from Sirius, that's all." At Harry's glare, Ron shoved back his hair. "I, er, do know about him."

"I'd hope so," Harry retorted. "Snogging his live-in boyfriend on the stairs is sort of a _clue_, you know?"

Ron shrugged. "Er, well, anyone you're interested in now?"

"Not particularly," Harry muttered. _Trent seems to be solidly with Matilda, and Zacharias is too much of a git. _He twirled the leaf in his fingers.

"Oh," Ron said, "it's also poisonous. The henbane, I mean. After you put it down, you should use a cleaning charm on your fingers."

"Great. The rest of you get flowers and I get a poison." He laughed. "Actually, I bet that's what Malfoy wanted it for, not some hokey love divination--" Harry's eyes widened. _Do you prefer more adult dances?_ He blinked. "Malfoy was _not _coming on to me," he whispered incredulously.

"Malfoy?" Ron exclaimed, delighted. "He's _bent_? Oh, that's brilliant! We have to tell everyone!"

Harry tensed. "Ron," he warned.

"What? If you saw him gathering henbane on the first of May? He's got to be! And he'd hate it if the whole school --"

Harry turned on his heel, the leaf falling in his wake, and slammed the door behind him. All the Gryffindors knew him well enough to stay out of his path when he went storming through the Common Room.

 

"Hi."

Hermione's skirts rustled as she sat down on the other end of the window seat. Harry looked over at her. She had pinned up only the front of her unruly hair, and wisps of it hung loose by her ears. He looked away.

She reached over to lay a hand on his knee. "Ron told me enough about what he said that I think I understand why you're angry."

"Oh, really?" Harry said sarcastically.

"Well, it isn't as if _he _did! I had to extrapolate from his muddled account of things." Hermione patted the knee. "Welcome to my world."

Harry glared at her.

"I mean, you _know _how he talks about girls. And he doesn't mean me -- except when he does -- and he doesn't notice when he doesn't."

That, Harry understood. He laughed slightly. "Yeah, I guess."

"So I explained what an inconsiderate prat he was, and he says he won't go after Malfoy about it."

"Thanks." Harry scowled. "I don't know how he could _not _understand. I'd just told him."

She sighed. "At least you know it doesn't matter to him."

"How do you get that?"

"If it did, he'd remember for two minutes."

Harry stared at her. After a few seconds, he started to laugh. She joined him. "All right," he said. "I'll talk to him."

"Good. Oh, and Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm fine with it too." Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled. "In case you haven't noticed."

He hadn't realized how tense he was until he relaxed at those words. "Thanks. Just to be clear, I do like some girls, sometimes. I mean, it wouldn't rule someone out."

She nodded. "That's been obvious more than once as well. I won't assume."

He swung an arm across her shoulders, pulling her close. "Thank you," he whispered.

 

He didn't seek Ron out -- as far as he was concerned, that was Ron's job, this time, but he went where he would usually go, after breakfast -- to the lower Gryffindor laboratory, where the Quidditch team had a private section for their project. Ron was coming down the spiral stairs from the Common Room before Harry had the folding grill compressed enough to slip past. In the brief glance it took to identify him, Harry found he was still a little bit angry and even a little bit hurt. He stood still, staring at the elongated brass diamonds that separated the team's reserved space from the main room.

"Harry!" Ron stumbled to a stop beside him. "I, er.... Sorry, mate. I wasn't thinking. I won't go after Malfoy."

A bit of his anger let go at hearing that, but Harry still couldn't look at him. "Good," he said sharply. "And not just because I would take it personally."

"I.... Right," Ron said sheepishly. "I should have realized that -- that it would be unpleasant for you, I mean."

"And you shouldn't anyway," Harry said, finally turning. "I'd stand with him, you know, if you did. And I don't think you want that."

Ron's eyes widened. "Oh," he said, and then, stumbling, "I suppose ... s'pose I can understand that. Maybe." He managed a lopsided smile. "If he wasn't Malfoy."

Harry snorted. "Right. Look, come in, will you? We need perfect coil springs, and mine always flatten somewhere."

They stepped into the reserved area, and Harry closed the grill behind them, latching it to activate the containment shield and adding a sound-muffling charm of his own. Anyone could watch them, of course, but there were advantages to that, where one might have an accident. He took off his coat and hat, removed his Gryffindor cravat, pushed up his sleeve garters, and put on a dragonhide apron.

"You wouldn't ... wouldn't leave, would you?" Ron asked, similarly stripping down to work clothes.

"What, Hogwarts?" Harry asked, startled.

"No, I mean ... sometimes Muggle-born wizards -- I mean, you're not Muggle-born, but being raised that way might be sort of the same -- sometimes they just leave, and go back to living as Muggles."

"That's mad!" Harry exclaimed, shocked.

"Really? Good, then."

Of course, really! Ron, I wouldn't leave the magical world if-- if Voldemort _had _managed to resurrect himself, my fourth year."

Ron laughed. "It's a damn good thing Pettigrew owed you a life debt. That would have been a nightmare."

"Yeah." Harry grinned at him. It had been a nightmare anyway, but at least one that ended. "I still would have stayed, though."

"Okay."

**********

Draco did not know what had possessed him to spout innuendo at Potter -- except that there was nothing else one _could _do with a line like that. Unfortunately, Potter was too much of a graceless lout to accept what he had invited, and instead had treated it as an unwelcome offer -- as if a Malfoy would want some scruffy, middle-class Gryffindor fool who was scarcely more than a half-blood -- and now he was _smirking _every time their eyes met, as if he thought he had something on him.

Of course, Draco reminded himself, that might not be what he thought. The entire incident may have gone over Potter's head, and he might be smirking over something entirely unrelated -- his exaggerated opinion of his Contrivance, for example. Draco frowned. He was allowing himself to be distracted by an incident that was no worse than momentarily unpleasant. What he should really be doing was trying to get more information on the Gryffindors' Contrivance.

 

"Thornton."

Draco's boy looked up from his chessboard and didn't quite sigh. "Yes, sir?" he said coolly.

"I have a job for you. I want you to tail Potter after lessons -- tell me where he goes, what he gathers, what he gets out of stores, that sort of thing."

Thornton frowned. "Wouldn't Creevey do that for him?"

Draco looked down his nose at the boy -- easier when the brat was sitting. "Don't ask questions. I have a plan."

And he did, he thought, as he walked away. Potter, of course, had Creevey, as he had Thornton, because scholars in their N.E.W.T. year -- or even their O.W.L. year -- no longer had time to run foolish errands. However, he intended to have Thornton seen tailing Potter -- and Thornton _would _be seen; fifteen was too young for true subtlety -- and then polyjuice into Thornton to follow Potter himself, while Thornton tailed Creevy. It was terribly clever. Draco sighed. Most likely, the entire exercise would be wasted on the Gryffindors. They had all the subtlety of a bludger. And there was unlikely to be any point to tailing Potter, as Thornton had so irritatingly noted.

Though tailing Creevy, he thought, was hardly better. Now if he could spy on Potter talking to Creevy....

Suddenly, his plan was much better. What he really needed to do was polyjuice into Creevy -- Potter's own boy -- and get information from Potter directly. That was a far better use for the Polyjuice potion he had obtained for Contrivance research. Thornton and Creevy were in the same year -- Thornton should be able to get him a hair or two from Creevy. As Creevy, he would make himself available to Potter, and with luck, Potter would send him on an errand, and then he could ask questions about what use it was, and maybe get some _real _information. Perhaps Potter would even give his servant a look at the Gryffindor contrivance in return for his assistance.

At the door to his dormitory, he hesitated. Of course, there was the problem of what _making himself available_ to Potter might mean. Professor Snape dealt harshly with any abuse of authority over assigned "scholar's assistants", as the serving lower years were called, but no doubt the Gryffindor upperclassmen (crude, rough, and physical as they plainly were) got away with far more, and Potter often bent staff members to his will, seemingly without thought. He wouldn't be surprised if Potter was buggering the boy. What would he do if Potter expected sexual services from him?

Draco's first thought was to keep the meeting in a public space, but he immediately realized that he wouldn't get any information that way. He would just have to stay alert and improvise. He wouldn't mind a little groping, he decided, picturing how Potter's eyes smoldered when they fought. Much more than that, and he was risking the polyjuice wearing off, anyway. He'd just cut his losses and run, if he had to.

 

 

The setup went smoothly. Thornton had two hairs for him by midday on Monday, and after lessons, Malfoy saw Creevy heading outside with some friends. Eagerly, Malfoy took a phial of Polyjuice potion and went in search of Potter. By great luck, he saw him just inside the library door, waiting for Granger, and that gave him time to duck around the corner, add Creevy's hair to the potion and choke it down, resize his clothing, and transfigure his cravat and badge to those of the Gryffindor design. When Potter came up the second flight of the stairs -- still without Granger, mercifully -- he found an apparent Dennis Creevy reading in a window seat at the landing.

"Oh, there you are," Potter said. "Run down to the school stores and get me some Fairy cocoon silk, will you? We don't have nearly enough."

Draco schooled his unfamiliar face into what he hoped resembled the look Thornton gave him at that sort of casual order. It really _was _irritating, considering he was two flights further away from the school potion stores than Potter had been minutes ago. "I'll just drop everything and get right on that," he said, belying his sarcasm by closing his borrowed potions text.

Potter, rather than launching a barb back, stared at him with his mouth open. Draco had the sudden thought that Creevy might not be much like Thornton. Before he could decide what to do, Potter had sunk down to the seat beside him, and laid a hand on his arm. Draco tried to contain his panic. Potter wouldn't do anything to him in the open, would he?

"Dennis?" Potter said gently. "Are you okay?"

Oh. He really _had _got it wrong. Draco dropped his eyes. "Sorry," he said contritely.

"I've just never heard you be less than enthusiastic." Potter gestured at the book. "Rough workload, this spring?"

Not knowing what else to do, Draco nodded. He also raised his head. Potter was looking at him with a gentle smile.

"I _am _sorry," he said sincerely. "I'll try to think ahead more, rather than sending you out all the time. I do need the silk, though, and I have N.E.W.T.s and E.F.T.T.s to revise for, you know." He punched Draco encouragingly in the shoulder. "Just think! Next year, I'll be gone, and you'll have a boy to run errands for _you_." He grinned. "And by the time you're prepping for O.W.L.s, you'll scarcely notice."

Draco nodded again. He hadn't expected Potter, who was all thunder and lightning and storm clouds, to be so sweetly reassuring to his boy. His plan was lost behind a fog of wondering if he might be kissed.

"Oh, here's something you'll find funny," Potter offered, in a cheering tone. "I finally had it out about my sexuality with Ron. It turned out that since I took you as a first year, he was convinced I must be straight."

Draco felt his eyes widen. That was worse than he'd thought. And he couldn't imagine how Weasley's mind worked. First year boys were more like girls?

Potter looked back at him uneasily. "Well," he said. "_I _thought it was funny. I mean, you're _still _too young to interest me that way, and I doubt it would make a difference if I was a year younger."

Draco caught his breath. "Oh," he said weakly. "It sounded like -- like you were saying you'd had sex with me then -- and I'm sure I'd remember that."

It was Potter's turn to stare. After a moment, he shook his head and laughed. "I'm so terrible with innuendo. Malfoy said something to me at the maypole, last week, and it wasn't until hours later that I realized he was making a joke."

"Malfoy?" Draco managed, by way of encouragement.

"Yeah. I'd assumed he was insulting me -- because it was _Malfoy_, so anything I don't understand is a taunt, right? And it was actually sort of friendly, and I was an ass about it. Now he glares every time I try to smile at him."

_That _was interesting. It wasn't at all the sort of information Draco had hoped for, but if that was all he got, the ruse was still worthwhile. Potter had actually meant all those odd smiles as friendly?

"Do you..." Draco tried to stop himself, but he couldn't -- "er, fancy him?"

"Malfoy? Well, I suppose he's hot, if you don't mind that evil sort of grace. I try not to think about him, though."

"Why not?" _Evil sort of grace? _

Harry snorted. "Malfoy can yank my chain like no one else in the world. He works me up in a minute. If I let him bugger me, I'd never be able to hold him off again." He shrugged. "Besides, he wouldn't look at anyone who's not a pureblood, I'm sure."

Draco's quick thought that he might, if that someone was Potter, tumbled over the shocking revelation that Potter was willing to be on the receiving end of things, something he would never have believed from anyone else's lips. He might have wasted more time on inquiring -- a fifth-year was old enough to be curious, certainly -- but his shirt cuff heated slightly, warning him that his time in Creevy's form was half-up. Fortunately, a fifth-year could also be awkward. He got to his feet. "How much fairy silk?" he asked.

Potter stood also. "Three cocoons should do it," he said. "Actually, better get four -- you know how I am."

Draco nodded, but didn't move. He forced himself to slouch and to shift his weight in an uneasy sort of way. "Could I see it?" he burst out. "The Contrivance?"

Potter shook his head. "Sorry. Team members only."

"I won't tell!"

"I know." Damn it, was Potter always this gentle with the boy? "But you might not be able to protect the information. Remember, the Slytherins have Snape on their side."

So Potter thought Snape would supply them with Truth serum, did he? Or did he know Snape was a Legilimens? Draco tried to assume a Gryffindor air of surety. "They won't catch me."

"_No_, Creevy," Potter said, a little of the iron that had Draco expected showing through the gentle plush of his affection. "Drop it."

He hadn't accomplished anything he had intended, but Draco couldn't help feeling that he had got quite a lot -- enough that a retreat was not unthinkable. After all, at any minute, the real Creevy minor might come bounding up the stairs.

"All right," he said. "You can't blame me for trying."

Potter chuckled, amiable again. "No," he said, "I can't."

**********

His encounter with Dennis had been a bit odd, but it left Harry feeling cheerful. It had least brought a thing or two incidentally out into the open -- all things he felt that they had an implicit understanding about, but considering Ron, he might have been wrong on that score. He went straight to the lab, tinkered with the targeting device for a few minutes, and realized that they were short on #3 ovoid gears. He sighed.

"Great. Dennis is already feeling overworked, and here I'm going to send him right out again." Considering the matter, he decided to go upstairs and look for a teammate -- preferably a younger one, whose assistant would have a lighter academic workload.

However, just as he reached the Common Room, Creevy burst in. He was covered with drying mud from his right hip to his feet, with patches of it splattered over his upper body. Harry dashed over to him.

"What happened to you?" he cried.

Creevy grinned. "Pick-up rugby. We pulled in two more purebloods this year!"

Harry's heart seemed to miss a beat. He stared at the boy. Dennis and Colin did start up rugby games in the spring, and were bent on converting their Wizard-born schoolmates to the sport.

"You've been out all afternoon," he stated numbly.

Creevy looked confused. "Did you need me for something?" he asked. "You hadn't said."

Harry shook his head. "No, but I ... I ran into you on the stairs a few minutes ago."

"I wasn't there."

"Yes, I get that." Harry's brain was finally past Creevy not being Creevy, and starting to appraise the damage. _Fairy silk, but nothing more about the Contrivance, but oh god -- men! And Malfoy. _He gulped in air. "It wasn't you, obviously. Polyjuice, I expect. The person did beg to see the Contrivance--"

"You didn't!"

"Of course not!" Harry looked frantically around the room. There weren't many people inside on a sunny May afternoon, but he suspected that everyone there was listening. "Come on -- we need to talk privately."

 

Up in the eighth-year boys' dormitory, Harry sank down onto the chair from his desk, and Creevy perched tailor-style on the end of Ron's bed.

"Did you give anything away?" he asked anxiously.

"About the Contrivance?" Harry shook his head. "Only in that I asked you to fetch me four Fairy cocoons for silk."

"That's not bad, right? I mean, I already know a bunch of things you can do with Fairy silk, and I haven't even started my O.W.L year."

"It's not bad," Harry agreed, groaning as he hid his face in one hand.

"Then what's wrong?"

"It was rather a personal conversation," Harry confessed. "Because you seemed down, which should have tipped me off -- I even said it wasn't like you...."

"Letting him know how to adapt," Creevy said quickly. "I suppose it would be someone from the Slytherin team." He thought. "Or Thornton."

Harry nodded. "Malfoy's boy, right? But more likely, Malfoy himself."

"I'd think he'd send Thornton, since it might be dangerous."

Harry took a deep breath. "Except Thornton wouldn't ask me if I fancied Malfoy."

Creevy's eyes widened. "Neither would I!"

"Except I'd just said that he'd sort of, er, flirted at me, on May Day."

"Oh." Creevy stared, and then shrugged. "Well, maybe I would, then. Do you want me to figure out _his  
_schedule, now?"

Harry snorted. "I should never have had you do that."

Creevy shrugged. "I thought it was just a way to let me know you were bent."

"It was, sort of. Without, you know, saying it, which might seem...."

"Yeah," Creevy agreed cheerfully. "So ... what do we do back?"

Harry hadn't quite made it to that stage of planning yet, and it took him a minute to think. "I think ... I think I should do the same thing to him," he said slowly.

"Won't he notice?" Creevy asked, his nose wrinkling.

"Maybe. But that just means I need to do it better. Which means I have to find out what Thornton's like and how he talks to Malfoy, and I already have a clue from how he talked to me as you, at first...." Harry's voice trailed off. This was more information than he could collect just from having Dennis trail Thornton around. What he really needed to was something like a Muggle bugging device....

He jumped to his feet. "Come on!"

"Where are we going?" Creevy asked, bouncing up to follow him.

"The lab. I have an idea."

 

His first thought had been centered around Pensieve base fluid -- which would hold sounds and images, although not for very long -- properly charmed and enclosed in a small sphere. But then he realized that Creevy would need to fetch it back from Thornton, and also to collect hair from him, so they better both be done at once, in case Thornton noticed and became too much on guard. Once Harry started to add in motion and a clipping arm, it was clearly not a one-hour project, so he sent Creevy off for Fairy silk and #3 ovoid gears and settled down to real design.

By Wednesday, the device was working, and Creevy managed to plant it on Thornton that afternoon, and on Thursday morning, he summoned it back while Thornton was distracted during Care of Magical Creatures. Harry listened to it alone first, and then, when it contained nothing too unsuitable, let Creevy listen to it as well. With an out-of-character grin, the boy played Malfoy to Harry's sullen, sarcastic Thornton until Harry decided he was ready.

"What if you get caught?" Creevy asked uncertainly, as Harry started out to the Quidditch pitch.

Harry remembered the ersatz Creevy's wide-eyed shock when Harry talked about letting Malfoy bugger him. He smiled. "That might be interesting," he said. "You just keep an eye on Thornton, take a few more color readings, and get reinforcements if I'm not back in an hour."

**********

Draco shifted impatiently. Thornton was supposed to meet him with the new team uniforms at the end of practice, and everyone else had already left. The boy was probably dallying just to be irritating. He strode to the door, but before he could look outside, the object of his annoyance appeared in front of him.

"You're late."

"Take it up with Crabbe. He'd dropped his schoolbooks on the parcel."

Draco snorted. That, he could believe. "You're still responsible for getting here on time," he said, deliberately looking Thornton over. "I don't see any sign that you hurried."

Thornton shrugged. "I wasn't aware it was that critical, sir."

"The Contrivance match is tomorrow!"

"Making it all the more likely that practice would run over."

"Thornton," Draco said scathingly, "leave strategy to your elders. Extra practice is of no benefit this late, and extra rest is."

Thornton shrugged. "If you say so, sir. I apologize for miscalculating."

It wasn't quite conciliatory, so Draco didn't feel the need to be quite gracious. "You'll stay until they're ready, you realize. All the buttons and buckles need to be moved over."

Thornton looked uncertainly at the bright green fabric. "Sorry if I'm being dense," he said, "but why are _we _doing it?"

It was a valid question. Draco couldn't claim he didn't find the task beneath him. He picked up one of the new Chaser's jackets -- heavy padding in the body, lots of give in the arm attachment, fitted lower sleeves -- read Vaisey's name from the inner collar, and summoned Vaisey's old uniform from his cubby. "Think," he said caustically, as he laid the old uniform out on the bench to his right, and the new one to his left. "Would you trust Crabbe or Goyle with this? Bulstrode? And Sharpe isn't worth the trouble."

Thornton had imitated his actions with a Beater's heavy coat. "I suppose," he said. "You could get some use out of Vaisey and Cauldwell."

"Neither of whom can be discreet." Draco held his wand to the top collar button. "Observe," he said, and cast a light severing charm. Reaching out, he picked up the freed button and moved it to the corresponding spot on the new jacket.

"Is there a charm to attach it?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "We'll call a house elf for that part. Just place each one where it belongs."

They worked in silence. Thornton was better at this than Draco had expected. After each garment was finished, Draco levitated it carefully to the floor. The house elf he summoned attached everything in seconds. Well satisfied, Draco rose to his feet.

"There," he said, "that's finished. Parcel up the others, Thornton -- we need to bring them back to Slytherin."

"All right," Thornton agreed easily. He frowned down at the pile of stripped uniforms. "Are you certain the Gryffindors are targeting by color, sir?"

Draco wasn't sure what about the question bothered him, but something did. He frowned. "You doubt my reasoning now?" he challenged.

Predictably, Thornton rolled his eyes. "Of course not, sir," he said, in his most insincere manner. "It just seems like a lot of work."

"This match--" Draco began, and then stopped. Thornton knew exactly what this match meant. He might complain about doing his share, but not about the work itself. And he should know perfectly well why Draco thought the Gryffindors would target by color.... Draco pause in mid-thought. He had, himself, impersonated Potter's boy.....

"Are you Potter or Creevy?" he asked, his wand already drawn. The boy turned and stared.

"What?" he asked, as if the question was nonsensical. He was really quite a good imitation.

"You heard me. Are you Potter, or Creevy?"

"I don't understand."

"_Incarcerous!_"

Vinelike ropes shot from Draco's wand and wrapped around the boy's wrists, pulling his hands away from an attempt to draw his own wand, and drawing them up towards an empty equipment hook. He twisted and kicked, but couldn't go anywhere.

"Polyjuice, I expect," Draco said, deliberately studying his nails. "It must have nearly run its course."

"You've gone paranoid, Malfoy!"

It was a good line, but not convincing. Draco shot him a look. "Really. Tell me, Gryffy -- Potter or Creevy? I might give you points for honesty."

"I doubt that."

"Potter or Creevy?"

"Which do you think?"

It was a challenge. Draco gave it the compliment of his attention. "Hm," he said. "It would be foolish of Potter, but then, he is a Gryffindor, so that is to be expected." He studied the face in front him. "I would say Creevy had more reason to want revenge, but Potter talked about me, didn't he?" He smirked. "Most vulgarly."

"Really."

"You did very well, whoever you are. I'm surprised."

Thornton huffed in an almost Thornton manner, and Draco smiled. His boy's features began to distort, and his body to grow. The magical bonds adjusted, pulling higher to keep the captive's chest raised and abdomen taut. Draco turned fully and his gaze swept the man head to foot.

"Potter."

"Fine. Now let me go."

"After what you've learned?"

"That you've changed your colors a smidgen? I'm not sure it's even out of our tolerance. A waste of money and effort, if you ask me."

Draco smirked. "Perhaps I'm interested in asking you about other things.'Evil grace,' Potter?" he needled. Potter didn't look intimidated.

"Yeah," he said cheekily. "Like Snape, except pretty." He tossed his head as much as the bonds would allow. Draco thought he was trying to get his fringe out of his eyes. "Not that you're nearly as dangerous as he is."

Draco's hackles rose. It was bad enough to be called 'pretty', but now Potter was also implying he wasn't a threat. "You think so, do you?"

Potter snorted. "I don't think _I'm  
_even as dangerous as he is, and I'm probably more dangerous than you are."

"You can't believe that," Draco said coldly. Potter raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "Or you wouldn't expect to bottom," Draco clarified.

Potter laughed. "You clearly haven't met my godfather."

Draco frowned. "Sirius Black?"

"Yeah. The one who killed Bellatrix Lestrange."

"What does he have to do with it?"

"Oh, after walking in on him in a leather collar and slashed jeans and nothing else, serenading his boyfriend with 'I Want to Be Your Dog', I'm pretty sure which end he favors."

Draco choked. "_Sirius Black_?"

"Yeah. So ... not much to do with dangerous, I expect."

Potter made another attempt to shake the hair back from his eyes. Draco leaned forward and pushed it to the side for him. Potter's eyes were very close, and very green.

"Not that I've tried ... um..." The tip of Potter's tongue flicked out between his lips. "Er, either...."

"Perhaps you should," Draco murmured, bringing his own mouth closer. His lips parted before Potter's moist breath, anticipating his taste. So hot...

"Mr. Malfoy!"

He jerked back. Potter tried to jerk back, smacking his own head into the wall behind him.

"Ow!"

"What in Merlin's name is the meaning of this?" Professor Snape demanded. He strode forward, wand out. Draco looked again at the way the bonds pulled Potter's arms up tight and stretched out his torso. Dropping lower, his eyes searched the folds of Harry's trousers, imagining he was hard beneath them. There wouldn't usually be a wide line just there, would there?

"Let me down, please, sir?" Potter asked.

"He was impersonating Thornton," Draco said quickly, trying to recapture some indignation. "With Polyjuice."

"You did it first!" Potter exclaimed. Draco smirked.

"What an imagination, Potter."

"Oh, don't deny it. You quoted what I said just seconds ago!"

Snape lifted an eyebrow. "Yet it seems I have just your word on that."

"And just his word that I did anything," Potter shot back. Draco reflected that he really wasn't very good at this.

"On the contrary, Mr. Potter," Snape said smoothly. "I have yours."

Potter understood that quickly enough. "My word is better than his, for the rest."

"To some people, perhaps," Snape answered, approaching him. He stood close -- almost as close, Draco reflected, as he had for their near kiss. Snape, however, had his wand in hand and pointed almost at Potter. "Not to me."

Potter scowled in his most dangerous manner. "Let's say other people believe you. Does it balance binding me here?"

Snape shrugged, but he looked uneasy. "Perhaps," he said evasively. "If you are telling the truth, which I doubt, it was foolish of you to repeat a trick on the trickster."

Potter shifted as much as the bonds would allow. Despite his precarious position, he looked pleased with himself. "I did it better," he said, smirking at Draco.

Draco lifted a shoulder, and waved a hand negligently to the side. "Not well enough."

"Because I didn't leave quickly enough," Potter acknowledged, lifting his chin arrogantly. "I acted a lot more like Thornton than you did like Creevy, though."

That stung -- because, Draco thought, he knew he was right. "Yet you still told him things you would not want repeated," he shot back.

Professor Snape might as well not have been there. Potter ignored him, and his wand, and the ropes around his wrists, and over Snape's shoulder, he looked back at Draco in challenge. "Oh, really?" he said.

In his heart, Draco found he was cursing Snape for forestalling that kiss.

Snape cleared his throat. Stepping back to cast a significant look at both students, he began to present terms.

"I believe," he said, "that it might be best for all concerned were this incident to not be officially acknowledged. Potter?"

Potter went up on tiptoes to have slack for a shrug. Draco thought he might be better at this than he had seemed.

"If I release you and we make no complaint," Snape said through clenched teeth, "will you, also, make no complaint?"

"Fine," Potter snapped, and then seemed to think better of that. "Yes, professor."

 

Professor Snape followed Harry to the door, and then stood, blocking it, while Draco stood impatiently behind him.

"Excuse me, sir," he said finally, letting his irritation saturated the polite words. Snape merely looked over his shoulder.

"You," he said, "will stay. We have matters to discuss."

"He didn't find out anything useful, if that's what you want to know."

Snape snorted. "Are you certain?"

"Yes," Draco returned defiantly. "He saw the uniforms, but clearly thought the change was just to another shade of green. I suspect he'll recalibrate his targeting device as soon as he's back in Gryffindor."

Snape raised his eyebrows. "Even knowing you know?"

"At most, he will see to it that it recognizes both tints."

"Very well." Snape scowled. "Was that how you recognized the impersonation?"

Draco hesitated. It had been something around the color change, but.... "Something seemed off," he said. "The way he was looking at me. He was cagey on details, and I led him astray."

Snape nodded. "Good. Now...." His cold look promised nothing good. "As to the tableau that greeted my arrival...."

Draco crossed his arms over his chest. "What of it?" he challenged.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Really, Draco! If he was truly unwilling, that might be enough to gain you forgiveness from certain corners--"

"For kissing a man?" Draco demanded sharply. He was surprised to find himself indignant. It was an unsuitable reaction, but he could not contain it. Although they had never discussed the matter, he had always imagined that Snape's tastes ran along similar lines.

Snape made a face. "For kissing _Harry Potter_," he said, "and don't forget that he is that."

Draco shrugged. "I don't care," he said obstinately. "I've spent three years pretending not to care; no one should be shocked that it has become real."

"Be that as it may," Snape said, between clenched teeth, "only two things might get you forgiveness: hurting him badly, or gaining political advantage from the association. _Secret, willing_ kisses do not meet either criteria."

Draco shrugged, as if his heart were not pounding in his chest. "I have plans," he lied. "But this is the only way to start with him."

**********

Harry escaped back up to the castle with his heart still pounding. It was impossible to sort out the last hour -- being caught, being bound (which, years after that incident with Voldemort, still held a menace that he could never have explained), almost being kissed, and then Snape's untimely entrance, and then Snape's cool threats and sudden reprieve. Harry was glad the professor hadn't thought to ask about Thornton, because he surely would have said that Harry's premeditated treatment of the boy was less excusable than Draco's binding of him.

He went up to the second floor immediately, and around a couple corners to where he had left Creevy. To his surprise, the younger boy was not waiting in the corridor. He came closer, and at the sound of he footsteps, Creevy emerged from the broom closet in which they had left Thornton.

"Hello, sir!"

"Creevy! What if it was someone else?"

Creevy grinned. "I have a keyhole periscope, sir. Very hard to see in shadow. But I've been looking through Thornton's things, and I made a discovery."

"Oh?" When Creevy gestured him towards the door of the broom cupboard, Harry spared a thought for the possibility that Creevy was someone else on polyjuice, again -- an escaped Thornton, perhaps -- but he seemed too _on_. A glance in the door showed Thornton still Stupefied.

"He has a notebook, a hand-sized leather-bound one. I've seen it before. It's for scheduled items and things he does for Malfoy. When I tried to open it, I couldn't, even with charms, but when I used _his _hands to open it, that worked."

"Excellent idea!" Harry said, impressed.

"Thank you, sir!" Creevy said brightly. He held out an open book to Harry. "Second entry, left page."

"Strl. Sh. dye -- 78 gg," Harry read.

"Streeler Shell dye," Creevy translated. "Seventy-eight galleons worth."

"That's a lot of money," Harry commented. Nearly four hundred pounds, he thought.

"That's a lot of dye," Creevy explained. "Colin uses it, of course -- that's how I knew the abbreviation right off. But he's never bought more than five galleons' worth at a time."

"The uniforms!" Harry exclaimed.

"Exactly. Which means they're a slightly different green _now_, but anyone who knows the password will be able to change them with a touch and the name of the color."

"And so much for our--" Past the thought of their enhanced Bludger, Harry suddenly imagined trying to play against a team that was wearing what would look like different uniforms. "Oh, that will be chaos!" he exclaimed. "I don't suppose the password is in there?"

"Not identifiably." Creevy drew his wand. "Shall we question him?"

He looked a little too eager -- or rather, Harry thought, as eager as he always was.

"Merlin, no! I'm in enough trouble. Malfoy caught me, and Snape caught _us_, and he threatened me and then backed down. Look, let's put back his stuff and let him go. That way, they don't know we know, and I'll tell everyone to listen for the word. The Contrivance can be put into non-red mode, if needed, and we'll just watch for referees."

 

The day of the match was fair and bright, which suited Harry to a T. The wind was low, which decreased the chances of spreading damage from their Contrivance, and increased the chances that he would hear the Slytherins' password. As he strode onto the pitch at the front of his team, he looked curiously at the tarp on the Slytherin side. You couldn't necessarily tell anything from size; five years ago, the Slytherins had appeared to have something huge, but it was just a lot of junk obscuring a dozen tiny stinging mech-flies. Ravenclaw had lost that match. Harry wondered if the Slytherins would use the same trick twice.

The referees -- seven for this match, rather than the standard one -- finished their consultation and arrayed themselves around the pitch. Madam Hooch flew down the center line.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "welcome to the Contrivance match!" The crowd cheered. "Players, mount your brooms." They did. Harry looked over at Ron and grinned. The match was on.

Harry lingered lower than usual, listening intently, but the Slytherins' uniforms stayed the same (slightly too bright) green. For the first ten or fifteen minutes, both teams played straight Quidditch, and Harry had risen a little higher by the first goal, which went to Gryffindor. Crabbe slammed a punishing Bludger at Ginny, who managed to evade it, but was forced out of formation. Harry went a little higher, waiting for play to move back toward the Slytherin goals.

After a few tense minutes, during which the Slytherin tarp stayed still, Archibald got the Quaffle and made a play for the Slytherin goals. In a sudden dive, Harry headed for the Gryffindor end of the pitch, and Malfoy, as he had hoped, followed. When they were near the tarp, Harry signaled Creevy, who released the cover. The freed Bludger, predictably, went straight for Malfoy, who swerved to the side.

A normal Bludger would have continued on. The Contrivance, however, turned to pursue him, ignoring the red-clad Harry, and struck the arm guard Draco had raised in protection. It was a glancing blow, and would have had little effect but for the explosive properties of dragon's blood. To a loud bang, the Bludger shot backward, singing the twigs of Malfoy's broom in passing. It then twisted round to come at him again. "_Asp_!" Malfoy cried, panicked and easily audible from Harry's nearby hover. "_Caeruleus_!"

His coat turned a shimmering blue color, and the Bludger zigzagged off down the field in search of Slytherin green.

Harry let it go. He doubted that all the Slytherin players would be as quick on the uptake as Malfoy. He rose lazily into the air, looking back to make sure Malfoy was okay. The Slytherin Seeker seemed unharmed, but his broom wobbled slightly as he ascended. Harry grinned. That was just about perfect.

Further down the field, he saw the Gryffindor contrivance get in a solid hit on Bulstrode. The secondary force of the explosion sent her flying backward. Crabbe stopped to stare, and was the next target. Nearby, Morgenstern changed her jacket to a soft mauve, and Vaisey turned his black. Harry was glad he had warned his team about possible color changes; this was going to be interesting.

Bulstrode had changed her coat and trousers to purple, and the Contrivance was repeatedly attacking Crabbe. Malfoy dove down and yelled at him to use the color charm. His broom rocked to the side while turning left, costing him time to rebalance. Harry grinned.

The Gryffindors, despite the warning, had a harder time tracking a team in all different colors, and the Slytherins quickly racked up forty points. When Gryffindor adjusted and started to score again, Malfoy raised his arm and shouted. On the ground, Pansy Parkinson released the tarp.

It really was huge.

The tarp bulged. Wings extended, the tips protruding from beneath the waxed canvas. A green metal neck stretched up, sending the tarp sliding back towards the ground. An involuntary "Ooo!" came from the audience as wings flapped, shedding the covering entirely, and revealing a mechanical dragon. _All style point are theirs_, Harry thought, wide-eyed, as the creature shot a lick of flame from its long snout. Style points just came to a few goals, though. The Contrivance was supposed to achieve results.

As he thought that, the dragon rose, coasting back and forth, ignoring the game as if it was a Seeker itself. Harry wondered if it was -- but making it large seemed like a lot of unnecessary work, if that was the case. The Gryffindor contrivance, targeting on the Slytherin green, came after it, but the great dragon merely plucked the ball out of the air. The orb shook, smoke billowing out between the dragon's talons and giving off a stink of sulphur as it burned sheepskin padding from the claws, but under the fleece was steel, and the diluted explosive made no impact on that.

Then the dragon saw Harry, and everything changed. It shot forward, clearly in pursuit, and Harry dropped down towards a few Slytherin players, hoping to obscure his location. It didn't help. Harry zigzagged across the pitch, trying to lose the great beast. It wasn't until Archibald cut him off from the dragon, to no avail, that Harry realized that the Contrivance was tracking _him_, specifically.

If he had time, he might have been flattered. As it was, he cut back and forth through the other players, trying to shake his pursuer. It came after him, and only him. Dimly he heard the noise from the audience grow louder and more worried.

Giving up on distractions, Harry rose high, as Seekers did by default. Malfoy was there, smugly surveying the pitch without distractions. Harry, dragon in pursuit, headed towards him. Malfoy, secure in the knowledge of the dragon's targeting, ignored him.

Harry didn't know what the dragon had been given for the parameters of his appearance, but the Seeker's uniform was sufficiently different from that of other positions that it might have been just "Seeker in red". He dove towards Draco, and in passing, grabbed his coattails.

"_Asp! Rufus!_"

The force of his grab spun both of them around, and the heavy fabric pulled out of Harry's hand, but not before it had turned from blue to crimson. Malfoy stared after him. Before the shock on his face could fully turn to anger, the dragon closed one set of padded metal claws around his shoulder and another around his thigh. Malfoy shrieked. Like an augmented echo, the crowd below screamed in panic. Flapping its great wings, the dragon began to rise.

Harry hadn't expected that. Shouldn't the dragon take him to the ground? But the Contrivance was definitely ascending, and heading off the pitch, its speed increasing with each flap of its wings. Malfoy had changed his uniform back to green, but that made no difference to it now.

Without reflection, Harry shot upwards in pursuit. The sound of the match faded away as he streaked towards the Hogsmeade hills, gaining on his quarry. He flattened out to his broom and put on all the speed he could. As he drew close, he reached out a hand for the dragon's tail, as if it were the Snitch. Six inches, four inches, two.... He stretched the last bit, and grabbed. As he did, he felt a sickening pull at his stomach, and the ground below spun away.

 

Harry had never come through a portkey still balanced, but this time, he was drawing his wand as the world resolved around him. He was still on his broom and Malfoy was still under the dragon, but they were in a large cavern, down a steep, short slope from a wide strip of lit sky. No one else seemed to be present. The dragon dropped Malfoy and rattled out the door, temporarily blocking the light. Malfoy moaned.

In a flash, Harry was on the ground, his Firebolt still between his legs, and his wand at Malfoy's throat. "Who's waiting?"

"What?"

"You intended for it to bring me here," Harry spat, furious with panic. "Who's here? Voldemort? Death Eaters?"

"No one," Malfoy said sullenly. "What is _wrong _with you, Potter? It's just a game."

"Right. And the last time someone sent me at a portkey in a game, I was nearly _killed_."

Malfoy, who had been about to speak, shut his mouth and cleared his throat. "Oh," he said. "That."

Still keeping his wand trained on Malfoy, Harry eased back slightly. "So? Does anyone else know about this place?"

Malfoy shrugged. With a few inches respite from Harry's wand, his poise began to return, and when he shoulders came down, they settled lower than before. "Snape knows it exists. No one knows it's where we are." He bit his lip, looking up at the bright sky. "I hope it will let us out."

"What?" Harry demanded. "It doesn't have a command to stop it?"

"Of course it does!" Malfoy said indignantly. "I'm just ... not sure it will listen if the command comes from the cave. I didn't actually implement that part...."

"Oh, just brilliant!" Harry said angrily. He rose a few inches off the ground and shot up to the entrance. The dragon was crouched outside the opening, glittering in the sun. Perhaps spotting him, it stretched out its wings to either side. When Harry took an experimental step forward, it reared up and extended one clawed foreleg. The other, oddly, still clutched the spent Gryffindor Contrivance.

"Ease back and let me try," Malfoy said, but he had no better luck.

"Stand down!" he commanded imperiously. Nothing changed.

"All right," Harry said. Concentrating on a spot further up the hill, he tried to Apparate. Nothing happened. "You put up an Apparation Block?" he exclaimed.

"Not exactly," Malfoy answered. His voice trembled slightly. "I chose this place because it already had one."

"Great. Any chance Snape will think of checking here before we starve to death?" Harry asked. Inwardly, he was already wondering if they could create an exit tunnel without collapsing the cavern around them.

"It would take a while to starve," Malfoy answered, a little more steadily. "He has provisions, further in."

"Good." Harry felt himself relaxing. "We'll just wait for it to run out of power, then."

He wasn't expecting Malfoy's hollow laugh. "What?" he demanded.

"I'm running it off Dragons' blood," Malfoy said. "It will rust first."

"What?" Harry looked at the dragon, which was now crouched facing the cave entrance. "You can't do that! It has moving parts!"

"Didn't your Bludger have Dragons' blood?"

"Only on the outside! And diluted! And we still had to restrict the top speed, or the wind would set it off."

"Well, in this, I've suspended jellied blood in a magnetic field," Draco said haughtily. "It has no contact with moving parts.

Harry stared. He wondered if he should start racing to the other end of the cavern now.

"You _did _take Mechanics, didn't you?" he asked incredulously. It was a rhetorical question. The class was required of all third years. "Did you miss the overview of Muggle technology?"

"Why would I bother with Muggle technology?" Draco sneered.

"So you can not reinvent it!" Harry shot back. "Electricity uses magnetic fields. Muggle electronics don't work in the presence of magic because magic _disrupts magnetic fields_."

Malfoy stared at him for a second, and then at the dragon for two. Quite suddenly, he whipped his broom around and shot down into the cavern, wobbling madly from the shortened twigs. Harry followed. Where they ceiling was too low to fly, they landed. Malfoy cast around them with a mid-level Lumos; Harry augmented it with his own.

"I can't believe Snape signed off on that!" Harry fumed.

"It wasn't in the proposal."

"You _lied _in your proposal?"

"No!" Malfoy sighed and shook his head. "No, it was a revision," he continued more quietly. "I couldn't get the speed I wanted at sufficient mass to control you."

"The next time Snape calls me reckless, I will laugh in his face!"

"Be my guest; Slytherin could use the points."

Harry's mouth quirked at that. He looked back at the distant light of the entrance.

"I suppose this solves our problem," Malfoy said, echoing Harry's thoughts.

"If the explosion doesn't collapse the cavern entrance."

"Right. We should reinforce the walls here, and then move back into the habitable areas."

"Habitable areas?"

"Snape is going to kill me," Malfoy muttered to himself. More audibly, he added: "Yes. I'll explain that it was an emergency."

He took a few steps back and raised his wand to the nearest wall, but at a grinding noise from the distant entrance, paused, looking back. "Interactions!" he choked. "Potter, does anything in your Contrivance interact with Dragons' blood?

Harry felt an answering stirring of panic. Why weren't they moving forward? "I don't know."

Malfoy whirled on him. "What do you mean, you _don't know_?"

"You know how I am at Potions! Archibald does our interaction checks."

"Well, what are the magical and alchemical components?"

"Er, um--" Harry thought frantically. "Streeler shell for color matching. Wood spirits. Fluxseed oil to dilute the Dragons' blood to legal concentrations. Erumpet hide and ironwood for the shell. Fairy cocoon silk for--"

"FAIRY SILK?"

"For anchoring the buoyancy charms to--"

"Do you know how many aphrodisiacs are made from Dragons' blood and Fairy cocoon silk?"

"Er, n--"

The grinding stuttered. A metallic _screee_ was followed by a stone-shaking _ker-chunk_.

"RUN!"

Harry took off after Malfoy. Around a boulder, he nearly crashed into him. Malfoy was wrenching open a door. Harry darted in, but Malfoy stumbled on the threshold. Harry started to turn to help him, but his broom caught on--

 

  
  
****

KA-BOOM!

  


 

Malfoy was lying on top of his back. Harry could feel him breathing. It felt rather nice. He stretched and shifted under the warm body to feel more of it.

"Mm." A spot of warmth blossomed on his neck as lips moved softly over it. "Circe, you smell good, Potter."

By mutual agreement, they shifted to align their bodies more effectively. Malfoy rubbed against Harry's arse with long, deliberate rocks of his hips.

"Let me up a little."

"Don't want to."

"Just enough to get my knees under me. The floor's hard." Harry laughed slightly. "I'm hard. The floor's harder."

Malfoy chuckled in his ear. "I suppose that would be uncomfortable."

It actually was a floor, Harry realized belatedly, not dirt. Behind him, Malfoy whispered "Lux," and candles flared in polished sconces, revealing a small room furnished with a small desk, chair, and sleeping mat on the floor.

"Let's move."

The seconds it took them to cross to the mat were nearly unbearable, even with Malfoy's hand on his hip. Only that grip kept Harry from dropping immediately onto the wool-stuffed canvas. He had the thought that this must be Snape's bed, but that wasn't enough to turn him off. Before he could do more, Malfoy had pulled him around by the shoulder. They stared at each other for a moment.

"When Snape came in...." Malfoy began.

"Yes," Harry said fervently, and moved into the kiss.

 

When Harry noticed that Malfoy's hands had progressed from touching him through his clothes to unfastening them, he shifted to reciprocate. "Yeah," he said. "Skin."

"Exactly," Malfoy murmured. "All of it."

"Yes." Harry had pushed Malfoy's coat off, but with two buttons of the shirt underneath undone, he paused to twist his hand into the opening and touch the soft skin beneath.

"This is _far _too arduous," Malfoy drawled. He cast a quick charm, and everything that could be unfastened was. Shin guards and forearm guards, unbuckled, clunked down on the floor or thwapped down on the futon-like mattress. Stays, undone on both ends, slid and fell. Malfoy's silver cufflinks struck with a bright clink, and Harry's plainer wood ones with a soft clack. Trousers, unsupported, began a slow slide down, quickly helped along by pushing hands, and were abandoned held up to the ankles by low boots.

"Perfect," Malfoy said, sliding his hands up and under Harry's shirt to push it back and off his shoulders. "I've been wondering what you would look like."

"Oh," was all Harry could say, hoping his hungry gaze spoke for him. Malfoy actually was perfect, with alabaster skin that was just warming to the blush of his desire. Harry trailed trembling fingers along the fine line of his collarbone and up behind his ear. He tugged him in for another kiss. Fingers stroked along the waistband of his pants, freeing where it had caught up on his full erection, and the fabric slid down his legs. Somehow, they managed to sit while still kissing. Malfoy lifted his head.

"Dragons' blood and Fairy silk," he said.

"Don't care," Harry said. "Wanted you anyway."

"Much to my delight."

Malfoy had got rid of his own pants as well, so Harry reached out to stroke a hand over his cock. It twitched into his touch, and he smiled, curving his fingers around the shaft. "Mm. Like that."

"Have you ever...?"

"To someone else? No." Harry stroked up the pale shaft. "Like silk," he murmured, hoping Malfoy didn't expect sentences.

"Gryffindor," Malfoy sniffed. "Straight to the point, I see." He leaned over and took one of Harry's nipples between tight-held lips, making Harry yelp in surprise.

"Problem?"

"No," Harry said, but Malfoy stopped anyway. His hands moved in long, firm strokes down Harry's body, and Harry arched up, seeking more.

"Lie down, Harry," Malfoy said softly. Even through his enhanced lust, Harry was surprised to hear his name.

"Harry?" he asked.

"I refuse to call you Potter when I'm inside you," Malfoy whispered, making Harry's head spin in the best of ways. "And I _do _intend to get inside you."

"Oh yes," Harry agreed, as Malfoy pulled him onto his side and settled close behind him. "_Draco._ Yes."

They rocked together, unhindered by clothes this time. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Harry was worried that they didn't have lube, that he didn't know what he was doing, and that Draco might not know either, but it was impossible to stop rubbing, and impossible not to push back when the tip of Draco's cock went low enough to press against his hole. He didn't even notice the clatter of stones until it stopped.

"Mr. Malfoy!"

Harry twisted to look back. Snape was standing in the open doorway to the cavern. Harry grabbed one of his boots and tried to throw it at him, but the angle was bad. Snape coughed. Harry's back was suddenly cold as a hex pulled him forward and away from Draco. He rolled onto his back, unconcerned to be displaying himself.

"Will you _please _stop interrupting?"

Snape's eyes flashed down him and then to the side. "Draco?" he asked coolly. Harry tried to move back, and found he was stuck to the mat.

"Aphrodisiac," Draco replied shortly. "Dragon's blood and Fairy cocoon silk combined in the explosion."

"I wanted you anyway!" Harry protested.

"And that's certainly mutual," Draco declared. "But we probably wouldn't have started here and now."

"Hm." Snape looked at them both. "Yes. That combination wouldn't create desire where there was none. Still, I'll have to prepare an antidote before we go back, or you will behave unsuitably." He stepped closer, and his eyes locked on Harry's. "As the party that _might _have a more credulous reception for second thoughts, I will give you the choice -- shall I stupefy you both, or provide Mr. Malfoy with lubricant?"

"Lubricant," Harry said fiercely. "And let us go!" He wrenched a shoulder forward to no avail.

"Very well." Snape opened another door, by the desk, and stepped through it. A few seconds later, he emerged again, and tossed a small object at them. Draco reached up a hand and caught it neatly, just as Harry's struggles suddenly rolled him forward. He was pressed delightfully against Draco, who nipped at his neck. Harry bit at his nipple and rolled his hips, rubbing his erection across Draco's skin.

"If you were not both my students...." Snape's voice said. Harry wondered if he would mind. Later, maybe. Before he could decide, the door clicked shut.

"Face away again," Draco said. "Please."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, complying eagerly, and he was rewarded with a wet stroke along his crack. "Oh, wow."

Malfoy circled a now slippery finger over Harry's hole. "Think he can brew an antidote one-handed?" he whispered, and Harry laughed breathlessly.

"Maybe it will slow him down."

"Oh, I'd like that." Malfoy pushed the finger in, effectively derailing any train of that thought Harry might have had. "I'm bound to come too fast after all this."

"We'll do it again," Harry promised.

"I certainly hope so." Malfoy was thrusting with the finger as if he was imagining fucking Harry, and Harry rocked back into it.

"More?" he begged.

Malfoy stopped and started again, and there was more breadth this time. "Good?"

"_So _good."

"Is it what you want?"

It was the sort of tone Harry once would have taken for taunting. Now it sped his blood in an entirely new way. "No," he said, the sound coming out so tight and harsh that Draco froze. "Want your prick," Harry elaborated. "Come on, Mal-- _Draco_. Need more."

"Gladly," Draco answered, pulling his fingers out and lying close against him once more. He went back to rocking against Harry, which was simultaneously wonderful and frustrating. Harry hadn't realized he could feel so empty. He inched up the mattress, trying on each thrust of Draco's to catch the tip of his cock. Finally, it worked. Draco was pressing against his hole. They both froze.

"Oh," Harry said, unable to express how good that felt. He coasted along the peak of his expectation for a breathless, extended moment, and then, exhaling, pushed back. That smooth intrusion came further in, and he was stretched more, with just a slight, sharp feeling around the rim.

"More, I think," Draco muttered, and the area was wetter, slicker. His touch soothed away the sharp feeling, and the push came slowly wider and deeper.

"Oh, fuck," Harry muttered.

"Still good?"

"Perfect."

"Good, because I think I'd need a Stupefaction hex to stop." Draco eased out and pushed in again, spreading more of the lube. The next thrust was smoother. "I can hardly believe I'm doing this -- that you're letting me do this."

For Draco, he sounded positively muddled.

"If it's all this good, I'll be begging you to do this," Harry returned, and Draco cried out and sped up his thrusts. He pushed Harry forward and rolled on top of him, pinning him against the hard mattress.

Harry twisted his head to the side. "That's right," he encouraged over his shoulder. "Fuck me like that."

"Oh, yeah. Like that, don't you, Harry?" Like--" Draco's words cut off as his voice rose, and his ratcheting thrusts stopped when he was embedded at his deepest. He roared, and Harry felt his body first stiffen completely, and then, slowly, go limp atop his own.

"Good," he murmured, and Draco breathed "Harry."

It was several seconds more before either moved again. Draco shifted slightly back, and Harry's body pushed out his diminished cock with an almost silly force. "Mm," Draco said, sounding slightly more awake. "I knew that would be too fast." He came up to his knees. "Roll over. I want to see."

Harry rolled over, showing his unrelieved erection. Draco ran his pale hand reverentially down the blood-darkened skin.

"Hm. I wonder if it's true, after all, that Muggle blood adds size." He licked his lips. "I hope you're satisfied with receiving, because I doubt that would fit."

Laughing raggedly, Harry came up on his elbows. "Fine with me. Do something with it, though -- I've never been so desperate." He brought his hand down to wrap Draco's fingers around his shaft, and encourage them in a stroke. With a tsk, Draco slapped his hand away.

"Patience. I expect to enjoy every bit of this." His eyes were still locked on Harry's erection, as he repeated his impossibly light stroke. "You know, I think that _would _fit in my mouth. The top of it, at least."

"God," Harry said. "_Please_, Draco."

Draco looked at his face then, sharply. "No pushing."

"I promise."

"No grabbing my hair."

"I'll be good. I swear. Just...."

"Mm." Draco bent his head, and with a delicate flick of his tongue, skimmed the exposed slit of Harry's cock. Harry thumped back onto the mattress.

"God. Everything you do is _brilliant._"

Draco, who was just settling between Harry's legs, snorted. "I'm glad you finally realized that, Harry. Perhaps we can get along, now."

With a cover of wet heat sliding over the head of his cock, Harry couldn't begin to object. When Draco started sucking, he couldn't remember there might have been something to object to. By the time he came, seconds after forcing out an incoherent warning (that Draco, to his relief, ignored), he was quite certain that Draco was entirely, inarguably, correct.

***********

Draco couldn't have said that the aphrodisiac had worn off, but now that both of them had climaxed, the effect seemed to have mellowed to a need to _stroke _each other constantly. Then again, perhaps they would have had that without the assistance of Potions. He desperately, _desperately, _wanted things to stay just like this.

"I wonder what's going on with the game."

"What?" That was so unexpected that Draco could scarcely comprehend it.

"The game. They lost both Seekers, both Contrivances, and both captains. Do you think they've called a break until we're back?"

Draco shrugged, hiding a growing despair. "Probably just playing on, with the Snitch fair game for any player," he said lightly.

"Ah. Ginny's good. We might win, after all." Harry rolled towards him. "Of course, whatever happens, both of us win." He looked uncertainly at Draco. "Yes?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"I-- Would you be my sweetheart? I know that's all backwards...."

Draco let out a shaky breath. He was not going to sob out his relief like a Hufflepuff miss. "I'm good at doing things backwards," he announced airily.

"Yeah? Me too." Harry laughed. "Poor Ron'll go spare. Wait -- that was a yes, wasn't it?"

"Do you genuinely find me that confusing?"

"Yes!"

"Ah. Well, you'll learn, I expect, now that you're paying attention."

"Now that I have context, you mean. I've _always _paid attention."

Harry's hand had drifted back to Draco's still soft cock, and was encouraging it slightly, one finger to either side of the pliable shaft. Draco was starting to lengthen along the touch when the door opened, and Professor Snape strode in.

"Here," he said, holding out a cup. His eyes tracked down. "One swallow apiece. I can't imagine you'll mind sharing."

Harry let go.

"Of course not," Draco said easily, sitting up and reaching for the cup. When it was in his hand, he stopped, the vessel half-lowered, looking past the stem at Harry.

"One more kiss?" Harry said, his face solemn. Draco nodded.

"Just in case." He held to the cup carefully to the side while they leaned together. Harry's lips were soft, and his cheek slightly rough. His tongue played along Draco's, promising more. When they parted, they were breathless.

After a deep breath and a slow exhale, Draco raised the cup. He took a moderate swallow. Afterwards, he sat, wondering if he felt different. Well, a little more self-conscious about being naked and sticky in front of his head of house, he decided, but another go with Harry still seemed like the ideal way to spend the afternoon. Or perhaps a stroll in the rose garden, with actual conversation, to see if this had any chance of becoming more than mind-blowing sex. He realized Harry was watching him anxiously, his lower lip held taut under his teeth, and he nodded and extended the cup.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut to swallow. Draco watched lines in his skin soften as the muscles relaxed, though his eyes stayed closed. His shoulders, with a slight roll, settled. He exhaled. Finally, his eyes opened.

"Draco?" he asked.

Despite himself, Draco smiled. He reached forward and took Harry's hand, and Harry leaned forward and kissed him, a little bit awkwardly, on the cheek. "It doesn't change anything," Harry murmured. "Except we should probably get dressed," he said, a bit louder, and Snape snorted.

"Ah, good. I had begun to wonder if I had prepared the correct antidote, or if you were wrong about the formulation."

Harry, tugging his trousers over to where he was sitting, grinned. "Maybe we just needed an excuse to go for it."

==========

Ginny Weasley had, as it turned out, caught the Snitch, which would have upset Draco more had it not left ample time for walking in the rose garden with Harry. He decided to blame residue of magical substances for the way gentle kisses turned to frotting against each other under the cover of an arbor until they both needed cleaning charms. Despite that indiscretion, he was pleased to find the conversation similarly enjoyable -- and almost as natural.

 

They both ended up with a week's detention with Snape. Draco had to write an essay on why modern Muggle technology was incompatible with magic, and Harry one on the importance of understanding reports that you approve. Neither took a week, but Snape didn't make them do anything else. He just left them together in his office every evening, and returned about an hour later. That was all right. Even better, Harry didn't try to pull away the time that Snape came back early. That, Draco thought, might win them another week of detentions.

 


End file.
